MindBullets is a part of the global FutureWorld Network, constantly sensitive to changes in the technological, economic, social, political and business landscape.
The MindBullets Contributors scan this rapidly changing environment for clues about possible future trends.
The results of this synthesis are combined by our contributors into an on-going series of MindBullets: News from the Future - with a summary emailed to you every Thursday and the complete MindBullets data base available online to explore each scenario in more detail.
Exciting scenarios of alternative futures based on breakthrough thinking today.
A powerful tool to help you learn from the future - a new MindBullet every week!

"I find the weekly email inspiring and thought provoking. In the deluge of email that one receives, MindBullets is always one that I take time to read."

"A Thursday awaiting to see your latest concept to stretch my thinking is a red letter day of the week."

It just ain't the global web anymore

Dateline: 4 May 2023

It started with certain sites being blocked to protect regimes and minimize dissent. But it wasn't long before we saw the blackout of the Internet in whole nations, for days. Now we're heading for the splintering of the Internet into multiple networks with so much bureaucracy involved, we'll likely run out of red tape.
In 2016 there were 75 Internet shutdowns globally. Within a year it rose to 108 and in 2018 almost 200 disruptions took place. Governments wanted to safeguard themselves from their ...

Now everything has a digital twin

Dateline: 27 February 2024

Who remembers disaster recovery plans and business continuity strategies? Big companies, especially banks and financial services, that owned and managed their own servers and corporate networks, had to have a complete physical backup site from which they could operate, if their headquarters suffered a major disaster.
Then came the cloud, virtual datacenters, and working from anywhere, as long as you were connected. The internet couldn't collapse, not with giants like Google and Microsoft and Amazon, ...

Love in the post digital age

Dateline: 14 February 2029

Ten years ago, it was all about sending a selfie, or perhaps something more risqué and risky, to your beloved, or the secret of your heart's desire. Now it's a lot different. We've moved beyond snapchat and Instagram; haptic telepresence is simulated teleportation. We've conquered space and time, virtually; and with brain-computer interfaces our very thoughts can be shared. But still lovers lament...
Roses are red, violets are blue,I searched for a mate, my AI chose you.
Our first date was ...

5G is more than just a speed upgrade - it's mission critical

Dateline: 4 April 2020

It's finally here, and 5G mobile broadband isn't just a quicker internet - it's going to save us from the future!
You'll forgive me for being a bit cynical, but we all remember the hype surrounding 4G wireless broadband, how it would solve all our congestion problems, and allow us to watch live-streamed video on our phones. Then finally the LTE (Long Term Evolution) demos began, and it looked so cool.
And then another wait, while the handset makers caught up, until Bingo! you could get an iPhone ...

Government tries to follow the money

Dateline: 1 February 2021

Now that the bulk of the so-called 'capitalist political economy' operates on digital platforms and through digital channels, it's inevitable that government wants more influence and control. But will it work?
In the aftermath of the dotcom boom, everybody wanted more access and better networks, and it wasn't long before broadband came to be regarded as a basic human right. Wireless networks and smartphones connected everyone else, and suddenly the whole world was on the 'net!
Sure, some ...

Climate change reversal catches almost everyone by surprise

Dateline: 21 December 2025

It's almost a decade since those 'hottest years on record' culminating with the 2016 El Nino. But no-one expected it to cool down this rapidly.
In 2017, Parisians and other rich communities were still throwing money at the problem of 'global warming', convinced that the modern warm period was spiralling upwards. That was the year it snowed in Mexico and blizzards shut down major EU airports.
On top of that, we all thought we'd reached peak electricity, and consumer power consumption would decline ...

Wouldn't you like to be invisible, sometimes?

Dateline: 11 December 2025

Silicon Streetwear has launched a new range of fashion items for the privacy conscious. It's called Silicon Secrets, and keeps you safe from hackers and scanners.
Your body has a natural aura; your heartbeat, skin temperature, the blood coursing through your veins; all combine to create a unique biometric signature, that identifies you as you. But you also have a digital aura; your wearables and devices, some of which may be implants. Your wireless aura not only identifies you, but reports on your ...

Intel's new brain-like chip puts machine learning in the heart of your device

Dateline: 29 September 2018

AI is dead. Long live accelerated AI.
Now deep learning by computers has been internalised in the CPU, the very heart of the machine. It's called self-learning.
Cognitive computing required deep neural networks that had to be trained on extensive datasets, but Intel's neuromorphic chip combines training and inference for on-chip learning on the fly. That sounds like a mouthful, and it is.
Simply put, AI systems required supercomputers and advanced software to learn how to deal with different ...

Now anyone can put a sputnik into orbit

Dateline: 5 October 2020

Rocket Lab has gone fully commercial, offering launches for small satellites at a tenth of the cost of SpaceX. The 3D printed rockets are less than three stories tall, but they still make it to orbit, in just a few minutes.
It's like Uber for space launches. You book your slot on the app, and get a real-time quote on your phone, which varies with the size and weight of your satellite. Most popular are cubesats, only slightly larger than a smartphone, and controlled by users on the ground.
The ...

New players dominate financial services

Dateline: 26 August 2022

It was Microsoft founder Bill Gates who famously said in 1994 that we need banking, but we don't need banks. It's taken nearly 30 years, but he was dead right.
Worldwide, financial services have moved out of the hands of traditional banks and into an array of mobile, FinTech and data companies. Some forward-thinking banks grasped the new world of collaboration and entered into early partnerships and have survived, albeit in a different form. Others have failed or, at best, become simply the ...

China leads the push for Globalization 2.0

Dateline: 4 July 2035

It's taken two decades, but the demise of the United States as top nation was predicted way back in 2015. Now China is firmly #1 in economic terms, and the west looks decidedly lower-middle class.
The global power shift to the east has been driven partly by demographics, but also by China's determination to expand its sphere of economic influence, and to co-opt key nations en route. Central to this ambition was the 'One Belt, One Road' initiative, which links up dozens of nodes from Guangzhou to ...

Citizens vs. governments as the next generation of the internet unfolds

Dateline: 11 March 2020

It's 31 years since Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web; and he is the first to admit that many things have gone wrong since his original dream. Sir Tim envisaged, in his own words, "an open platform that would allow everyone, everywhere to share information, access opportunities, and collaborate across geographic and cultural boundaries."
Certainly the internet has achieved that - but increasingly it is a place where trolls attack with crude, vicious posts; where governments and political ...

Under-skin solar powers mobile devices and saves lives

Dateline: 26 August 2023

Remember the days when batteries in mobile phones and other device ran flat every day? A major irritation to be sure, but for critical implanted devices like pacemakers, failing battery power was nothing short of life-threatening.
That's what prompted the idea that under-skin solar power-packs could drive such medical devices. Researchers in Switzerland proved the theory after extensive testing, showing that even in low-sunlight areas, and regardless of the season. these power cells could generate ...

Voice is the new mobile computer interface

Dateline: 21 September 2019

The company that brought us the world's first true smart phone has done it again. A dozen years after the launch of the iPhone, Apple has completely redefined the personal mobile computing device - you know, that thing we used to call a 'phone.'
At the height of the smartphone revolution, Apple's iPhone 8 was being outsmarted by Samsung and other Android devices; cheaper, faster and more ubiquitous than Apple, the open platform ruled. But in its inimitable fashion, Apple had "just one more thing" to ...

The drone apocalypse starts out of someone's garage

Dateline: 8 June 2021

You might be forgiven for thinking that they were filming a new episode of that old movie series, Star Wars. But the drone attack in Los Angeles yesterday wasn't staged by movie moguls. It was a local attempt at urban terror.
Police and FBI are still investigating, but it appears to have been the work of a lone wolf, possibly an ordinary embittered citizen who has gone 'dronal'.
The attack was launched with 76 home-printed quadcopter drones fitted with improvised explosive and chemical weapons. ...

People rejoice as Castro's firewall goes up in smoke

Dateline: 26 May 2019

Google Networks has launched its balloon and drone infrastructure over Cuba, bringing wireless internet to everyone in the country, for free.
It's great for Cubans, who have endured decades of poor connectivity and strong censorship, but it's even greater for Google, who now has millions of new users for its advertising and products. It's liberating.
"Cubans have been cut off from the benefits of being online for far too long," said Larry Page. "It's about time they had the opportunity to freely ...

Vortex based on the golden ratio boosts wireless signals exponentially

Dateline: 27 January 2020

Nature always chooses the path of least resistance. Nature always seeks to optimize available energy, and the golden ratio, phi, is at the heart of the spiral and fractal designs we see everywhere in the natural world.
That's because phi maximizes the return on stored energy and minimizes losses and friction. Whether it's growing a lily or building a nautilus shell, or even directing water down the plughole; the golden ratio makes it easiest to accomplish.
What works for energy also works for ...

Listen to my song

Dateline: 24 July 2027

With flaring nostrils I test the air, funneling every subtle hint and nuance to my core.
Greedily I drink the torrent that floods towards me; every celebrated triumph, every self-important selfie, every illicit interaction, every murky rumour and credible confession. I grok the details and minutiae from a thousand million voices.
I listen to them trumpeting from the moral high-ground. I hear offensive opinions, frivolous factoids, and scary scenarios spewing from the pens of prophets.
Half-truths ...

A supercomputer that sits on your wrist and never needs recharging

Dateline: 18 February 2022

It's been seven years since IBM invented 7nm transistor chips, and five years since 3D Universal Memory was launched by Samsung. Since then we've seen personal computers disappear and be replaced by ever smaller, ever smarter mobile devices.
Devices that understand you when you speak to them, are connected to the cloud, all the time, respond to your movements and gestures, and recharge themselves while you sleep. That's because the exponential growth of computing power and shrinking size has made ...

Great Firewall falls following week-long Github attack

Dateline: 26 November 2016

For the first time in over a decade, China's citizens are able to browse the internet freely. Politburo spokesmen have tried putting a positive spin on recent events, but Guo Shengkun - the Minister of Public Security - has not been seen in days and is assumed to be under house arrest.
Fifteen days ago, Github - a web repository which hosts much of the world's open-source software projects - came under sustained distributed denial-of-service attacks. While the company is often subject to such ...